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The Trouble With Warp Speed

If you grew up watching Star Trek you can recall “Warp factor two Sulu,” Scottie starting to sweat about things if Warp 6 was run for any length of time, and going absolutely worried at Warp 7 and above. But at the same time when warp drive was engaged stars would go flying by the craft like gnats.

At cruising speed it would take the Enterprise 2.1 years to reach our closest star and at max safe speed it would take 8.4 months. For a kid who learned his Starfleet Technical Manual, yes I owned a copy, this has really rocked my world 🙂

You would think later versions of Star Trek, what with all the technical advances in the new starships, would go faster, it doesn’t seem to be the case. The NCC1701D in The Next Generation only has a top speed of Warp 9.9. That cuts the time to Alpha Centauri to a mere four months instead of 8, and still takes a full year to reach the 12th closest star to earth.